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months after Noda Castle surrendered (16 February 1573), and accounts vary as
to the cause of death: a sniper wound sustained during the siege, or an old war
wound, or possibly from pneumonia. In the movie Shingen’s corpse is submersed
in Lake Suwa and his death is kept secret for three years. The historical real ity is
that Shingen was interred at Erin-ji Temple in what is now Kōshū, Yamanashi Pre-
fecture. There was no interregnum during which a kagemusha impersonated the
daimyō. Shingen’s son, Takeda Katsuyori (1546–1582), took over as leader of the
clan immediately after his father’s death and, as depicted the film, defeated
Tokugawa Ieyasu at the Battle of Takatenjin in 1574. As also depicted in the film,
Katsuyori was decisively defeated at the Battle of Nagashino in 1575. Kurasawa’s
rendition of Nagashino is fairly accurate. When Katsuyori’s cavalry force (number-
ing about 4,000) attacked, 3,000 Nobunaga riflemen, protected behind wooden
stockades, opened rotating volley fire with their Tanegashima (matchlock muskets)
and decimated the Takeda horse men. When it was all over Katsuyori’s army of
15,000 had suffered some 10,000 casualties. Katsuyori also lost a dozen of his gen-
erals. Nobunaga’s skillful use of firearms to thwart Takeda’s cavalry is often cited
as a turning point in Japa nese warfare, indeed the first “modern” battle. What is
inaccurate about the movie version: it omits the fact that the battle took place in
heavy rain— which Katsuyori erroneously thought would wet the Nobunagas’
gunpowder and render their muskets useless. After his devastating loss at
Nagashino, Katsuyori hung on for another seven years but his fortunes contin-
ued to decline. Katsuyori’s forces were fi nally destroyed by the combined armies
of Nobunaga and Tokugawa at the Battle of Temmokuzan in 1582. In the aftermath
Katsuyori, his wife, Hojo Masako, and Nobukatsu, one of his two sons, committed
ritual suicide (seppuku). Daimyōs did indeed use doubles for security purposes but
the story of the thief is pure fiction.
Kanał (1957)
Synopsis
Kanał is a Polish war film directed by Andrzej Wajda. The second installment in
Wajda’s War Trilogy— preceded by A Generation (1954) and followed by Ashes and
Diamonds (1958) — Kanał tells the story of a com pany of Home Army re sis tance
fighters using the city’s sewers to evade capture by the Nazis as their defensive posi-
tion collapses during the 1944 Warsaw Uprising.
Background
In late July 1944, during World War II, the advancing Red Army had reached the
eastern suburbs of Warsaw, Poland’s capital city. The close proximity of the Rus-
sians prompted the Polish government in exile in London to order its Home Army
(Polish: Armia Krajowa or AK) of re sis tance fighters to mount an uprising against
the German occupation. By liberating Warsaw prior to full Rus sian involvement,
the Poles hoped to bolster claims to national sovereignty before the Soviet- backed
communist Polish Committee of National Liberation could assume po liti cal control